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Dr. Mark Albrecht, former presidential adviser on space security issues, and former President of Lockheed Martin’s International Launch Services division.
“If we persist in the strategy of containment and constructive engagement underwritten by conventional military force as the primary tool of avoiding a new Cold War, we will actually increase the risk of military conflict.”
Luke Bencie, former CIA operative whose career in private international security matters has taken him to more than 140 countries.
“If the United States plans to win the next Cold War, it must adhere to a strategy of less ‘coddling’ of its intelligence officers...”
Major General (ret.) Julie Bentz, former NSC staffer and former Deputy Director of the Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Organization.
“I see the New Cold War forming around the intense ideological rivalry right here, within the United States itself.”
Dr. Ryan Berg, director of the Americas Program and head of the Future of Venezuela Initiative at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
“The New Cold War will not only be fought but also likely won in the capitals of South and Central America, as well as small island-states in the Caribbean.”
Andrew “Swede” Borene, former intelligence officer with the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and a certified information systems security professional.
“We must have both a sales ‘pitch’ to the nations and societies not engaged in the fight, and a ‘counterpitch’ to make directly to our global competition.”
Captain (ret.) Bill Bray, former Naval Intelligence officer and Chief of Naval Operations Strategic Studies Fellow, currently serving as Deputy Editor-in-Chief of the Naval Institute’s Proceedings.
“If most Americans view the military officer corps as partisan, they will tend to view any war as partisan, and domestic politics will no longer stop at the water’s edge.”
Charles Brooks, former Legislative Director for Science & Technology at the Department of Homeland Security and a world-recognized expert in cybersecurity.
“The emergence of digital technologies has national security implications and heralds a change in basic assumptions about how countries will approach military conflicts.”
Brigadier General (ret.) Christopher Burns, former Army Special Forces and Joint Special Operations Task Force; former Assistant Commanding General, U.S. Special Operations Command; and Commander, Special Operations Command North.
“If history is any guide, our politicians and law enforcement will have to unite to take down the pervasive criminal networks, which already are infiltrating every level of American society.”
Michael J. Burns served all three national laboratories associated with the National Nuclear Security Administration, with additional assignments at the White House and Department of Homeland Security.
“Our nuclear weapons enterprise must clearly demonstrate and communicate our resolve to deter aggression and respond if needed.”
General (ret.) Wesley K. Clark, former Supreme Allied Commander of NATO.
“However much America wishes to limit and dispense with [nuclear weapons], their usefulness is an established fact.”
Dr. Zack Cooper, former official at the National Security Council and Office of the Secretary of Defense.
“Washington should adopt a phased approach. In the long run, a truly stable relationship is unlikely to occur until Communist Party leaders revise their attitude and policies toward the United States.”
Dr. Jacqueline Deal, Co-founder of the American Academy for Strategic Education and President and CEO of the Long-Term Strategy Group, a Washington-based defense consultancy.
“Succumbing to Beijing’s threats is a mistake. The CCP would be on the horns of a dilemma if instead Washington publicized them.”
Lieutenant General (ret.) David A. Deptula, Dean of the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Power Studies.
“Today, we face more consequential threats to our nation’s security than at any time in our history. Simultaneously, our military is in serious decline.”
Jack Devine, former acting CIA Director of Operations, Associate Director of Operations and recipient of the Distinguished Intelligence Medal.
“China is a much more powerful nation now, both militarily and economically – and represents the greatest long-term threat to the United States – but Vladimir Putin remains the linchpin in the alliance.”
Elaine K. Dezenski, Senior Director and Head of the Center on Economic and Financial Power at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.
“Ally-shoring and new alliances for western hemisphere trade and economic engagement are crucial steps to strengthen regional democracy and America’s economic security.”
William J. Esposito, former Deputy Director of the FBI.
“We need to expose the source of drones, armament and other devices used to wage war, plus the miles of underground tunnels built and used in Gaza without the knowledge of our intelligence agencies.”
Captain (ret.) James E. Fanell, former senior naval intelligence officer for China at the Office of Naval Intelligence and the chief of intelligence for CTF-70, 7th Fleet and the U.S. Pacific Fleet.
“There are many other areas of growth in the PLA’s conventional force structure, but most worrisome is what they have done in the nuclear arena.”
Major General (ret.) Arnold Fields, former Deputy Commander U.S. Marine forces in Europe, former Director U.S. Marines General Staff and former Inspector General U.S. Central Command.
“We want to believe that a so-called New Cold War will have no side effects or enduring challenges to our nation. This … could be a false and dangerous assumption.”
Lieutenant Colonel (ret.) Peter Garretson, Senior Fellow in Defense Studies at the American Foreign Policy Council and former strategy and policy adviser to the Chief of Staff of the Air Force.
“Space is, once again, the central theater of great-power competition. It is central to America’s special mission as the lighthouse for liberty and as the steward and arsenal of democracy.”
Dr. David V. Gioe, former Navy commander who currently instructs in military strategy at West Point and at King’s College London.
“America must regain a common reality and a shared sense of purpose, in united accord, to endure and once again shine as an example to the world. If we do not, we will have no foreign enemy to blame.”
Dr. Namrata Goswami, author, professor and consultant specializing in space policy and international relations at the Thunderbird School of Global Management of Arizona State University and the Joint Special Forces University.
“The challenge now confronting America is whether democracies or autocracies will access the tremendous wealth of the inner solar system, and whether that wealth enables a broadening of liberty or a contraction of it.”
Colonel (ret.) James A. Hamby, former Chief of Counterintelligence & Human Intelligence at U.S. Central Command and former first Deputy Director of the Defense Clandestine Service.
“We urgently need a surgical but multidimensional approach to prepare for and counter the growing threat of the New Cold War.”
Dr. John R. Harvey (1946-2024), former Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Nuclear, Chemical & Biological Defense Programs.
“Our deterrence strategy must depend on the specific adversary and involve a mix of targets all tied to that adversary’s value structure, including the ability to pursue warfare.”
Rear Admiral (ret.) Norman R. Hayes, former Director of Intelligence at the U.S. European Command with responsibility for all U.S. Forces intelligence systems, plans, policy and contingency intelligence activities in the European Theater.
“Looking into the crystal ball is difficult; a picture of the next 25 to 75 years is obscured by innumerable variables. It is important that we make some inferences and clear away some of the fog.”
Lieutenant General (ret.) Ben Hodges, former Commander U.S. Army Forces Europe and currently Senior Mentor to NATO for logistics.
“The West must defeat Russia first. This is how we deter an expanded war in Europe, in the Middle East and with China.”
Richard L. Holm, a former CIA officer and recipient of the Distinguished Intelligence Medal, whose 35-year career focused on China and the former Soviet Union.
“There are many domestic issues affecting our ability to engage our adversaries. Indeed, if we do not address them properly, they will sap our strength and national will.”
William Inboden, former State Department and National Security Council official, now Director of the Hamilton Center for Classical and Civic Education at the University of Florida.
“We should use sophisticated and subtle means to reach out to the Chinese people as natural allies in the quest for self-government and as a wedge of pressure against their repressive dictatorship.”
Mark E. Kelton, former senior CIA officer and Deputy Director of the National Clandestine Service for Counterintelligence.
“We need a national security strategy that recalls the positive, optimistic, can-do spirit of the Reagan era as a force-multiplier for American power and influence.”
Dr. Dale Klein, former Chairman of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission and Assistant to the Secretary of Defense for Nuclear, Chemical & Biological Defense Programs.
“Our electrical grid represents our single most important civilian infrastructure, and we need to craft a deterrence strategy to protect it.”
Dr. Charles Kupchan, senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and Professor of International Affairs at Georgetown University’s Walsh School of Foreign Service.
“A new strategy of containment will not, on its own, further the West’s core interests. Today’s world is much more globalized and interdependent than the world of the 20th century, making cooperation across ideological dividing lines a strategic imperative.”
Richard Phillip Lawless, former CIA officer and former Deputy Undersecretary of Defense whose long career concentrated on nuclear nonproliferation.
“We have learned [that] for at least five years, Chinese state-directed hackers have been active inside the infrastructure networks of our nation.”
Dr. Thomas G. Mahnken, Senior Research Professor at the Philip Merrill Center for Strategic Studies at Johns Hopkins University and a member of both the National Defense Strategy Commission and the Army Science Board.
“The United States and China are more economically interdependent than was the case with the Soviet Union. That said, history can and should inform us, even if the past does not repeat itself.”
Dr. Michael C. “Mac” McMahon, Senior Fellow at the Department of Defense’s Irregular Warfare Center and a former U.S. Air Force Officer with intelligence, strategy, education and training leadership positions.
“In the 1990s, the Soviet Union’s collapse triggered a significant retrenchment of our security enterprise. We need to avoid repeating that mistake.”
Michael “Mick” Patrick Mulroy, former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for the Middle East and retired CIA paramilitary officer and retired U.S. Marine.
“The revisionist states – nations unhappy with the current world order, like Russia and China – are driving us into a New Cold War.”
Commander (ret.) Jon Olson, author, national security lecturer and former host of the radio program National Security This Week.
“America’s new leaders must refocus our national security thinking, incorporating a mindset that considers where we should be at the end of the next quarter-century rather than trying to influence the next fiscal quarter.”
William R. Piekney, former chief of the CIA’s East Asia and the Africa Divisions and the Director of Central Intelligence’s representative to the State Department's Accountability Review Board for the 1995 Riyadh bombing.
“A great nation cannot deal with international crises without the undergirding strengths of political and societal cohesion. We are starkly divided and constantly losing the capacity to govern ourselves.”
Dr. Christopher Preble, Senior Fellow and Director of the Reimagining U.S. Grand Strategy program at the Henry L. Stimson Center in Washington.
“Calls for massive increases in Pentagon spending to compete with, and ultimately defeat, a nation of some 1.4 billion people, must deal with several inconvenient facts.”
Dr. Majid Rafizadeh, president of the International American Council on the Middle East and board member of the Harvard International Review.
“Let’s shine a light on one of the major players in this global chess game – the Iranian regime – and figure out how we can confront it head-on. Almost every armed conflict around the world bears the fingerprints of Tehran and its proxies.”
Daniel F. Runde, senior vice president and Director of the Project on Prosperity and Development and William A. Schreyer Chair in Global Analysis at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
“Following the era of Great Powers competition, regardless of when that transition takes place, America must be prepared to lead again in a world that basically has reverted to the rules set up after World War II.”
Beth Sanner, former Director of the CIA’s Career Analyst Program and former Vice Chair of the National Intelligence Council.
“Whether defined as a war or not, the United States, its institutions and its dominant role in the world are indeed under attack, predominantly in a realm called the gray zone.”
Elizabeth Shackelford, foreign-affairs columnist for the Chicago Tribune, Senior Policy Director at the John Sloan Dickey Center for International Understanding at Dartmouth College and former career diplomat with the U.S. State Department.
“Restoring our diplomatic parity with China will require … a change in culture, so that strong career diplomats will choose to work in difficult but important posts and will be professionally rewarded for doing so.”
Daniel Sneider, former Moscow Bureau Chief for the Christian Science Monitor, non-resident Distinguished Fellow at the Korea Economic Institute of America and a lecturer in East Asian Studies at Stanford University.
“We are now seeing a growing linkage between the war in Europe and the challenge of China in East Asia.”
Henry D. Sokolski, former Deputy for Nonproliferation Policy for the Defense Department, who also served on two congressional strategic weapons proliferation commissions, is Executive Director of the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center.
“Sharing strong encryption capabilities with citizens in hostile states could enable them to communicate safely and organize against their governments.”
Rear Admiral (ret.) Mike Studeman, Former Commander of the Office of Naval Intelligence and Director of Intelligence for the joint Indo–Pacific Command and Southern Command.
“Those who deny we are in a Cold War-like environment are forestalling the organizing principle America requires to muster the unity of national and international efforts required to deal with the magnitude of the problem.”
Admiral (ret.) William O. Studeman, former acting Director of Central Intelligence and Director of the National Security Agency as well as Director of Naval Intelligence.
“Not until after I left government, after almost 35 seminal years, did I learn (or perhaps relearn) a most important leadership and management lesson. Top American industries … seemed to apply far more creativity and rigorous oversight to pursue their strategies.”
Ashley J. Tellis, former senior adviser to the State Department in Washington and at the U.S. Embassy in New Delhi, and on the National Security Council as a special assistant to President George W. Bush.
“Both national parties have turned anti-trade at precisely the time when this country should be latching onto every source that promises increased economic growth vis-à-vis China.”
Jim Thomas, former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Plans and former Senior Vice President for Studies at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments.
“Restructuring our military from a control force into a denial force represents perhaps the single most important step to shift from today’s unsustainable forward-defense strategy to one better suited for the long haul.”
Dr. Edwin M. Truman, former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for International Affairs and Director of International Finance at the Federal Reserve System.
“An effective Cold War offense also requires the identification of areas where commercial deals can be done. In today’s world, countries close their doors to all commercial exchanges at their economic peril.”
Joe Wippl, former chief of the CIA’s Europe Division and currently Professor of the Practice of International Relations at Boston University.
“The most serious threat, present and future, is irrational behavior by a nation–state allied with cadres of terrorists and financed by organized crime.”
Brigadier General (ret.) Simon P. “Pete” Worden, former Director of NASA’s Ames Research Center and an expert on military and civilian space issues.
“The problem is that today America and its global partners have little ability to determine what’s happening in Cislunar space [and] this space-domain-awareness shortfall is most worrisome.”